MARX TO WILHELM BRACKE
IN BRUNSWICK
[London,] 20 November 1876
Dear Bracke,
Enclosed the first French sheet for Mile Isolde Kurz for her sample translation; the latter must be returned to me at the same time as the French original (for purposes of comparison).[1]
It is Lissagaray's opinion—since his book will be out by the beginning of January, whereas the difficulties over the translation will cause a delay—that it would be better after all to publish the German edition by instalments.
Also enclosed the great Guillaume's MISSIVE.[2] What I find particularly amusing is que pensent les socialistes de langue française'.'[3] These socialistes 'de langue française are, of course, wholly embodied in the Reclus brothers (secret co-founders of the Alliance[4] but otherwise unknown so far as socialist works are concerned) and De Paepe, who is Dutch by birth but in other respects Belgian.
I hope you will pull it off at the elections; a demonstration of this kind on the part of the peasants would be significant.[5]
Yours,
K. M.
- ↑ Considering it very important to familiarise workers with the true history of the Paris Commune, Marx became actively involved in the commissioning of a German translation of a book written by one of its members, Prosper Olivier Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune de 1871. He requested Wilhelm Bracke, and Engels asked Wilhelm Bios to find somebody to do the job. The sample translation done by Julius Grunzig failed to satisfy Marx, as did that by Isolde Kurz. Although Marx was already overburdened with work, he had to spend a great deal of time and effort editing the translation. In the autumn of 1877, on Marx's and Engels' proposal, Wilhelm Bios was recruited as another editor. Lissagaray's book appeared in German in Brunswick late in 1877.— 155, 172, 189, "l 96,' 222, 230, 262, 266, 285 19.) The general socialist congress held in Gotha from 19 to 23 August 1876 decided, at its meeting of 23 August, to publish a single organ of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, Vorwärts, that was lo replace Der Volksstaat and Der Neue Social-Demokrat. The congress elected Wilhelm Liebknecht and Wilhelm Hasenclever editors of the new paper, which was to appear from 1 October.
- ↑ Marx is referring to James Guillaume's letter which Bracke had forwarded to him enclosed in his own letter to Marx of 14 November 1876.
- ↑ what the French speaking socialists think
- ↑ The Alliance of Socialist Democracy was founded by Mikhail Bakunin in Geneva in October 1868 as an international anarchist organisation which incorporated the secret conspiratorial organisation he had set up earlier in Italy (see Note 266). The Alliance had sections in Italy, Spain, Switzerland and in the south of France. In 1869, it applied to the General Council of the International Working Men's Association for admission. The General Council agreed to admit the sections to the International on condition that the Alliance was disbanded as an independent organisation. Having joined the International, Bakunin to all intents and purposes ignored this decision and incorporated the Alliance into the International under the guise of a Geneva Section (called the 'Alliance of Socialist Democracy. Central Section'). Marx, Engels and the General Council resolutely opposed the Alliance, exposing it as a sect hostile to the working-class movement which sought to split it and obstruct its independent development. At the Hague Congress of the International (1872), the Bakuninists sustained a shattering blow. Bakunin and Guillaume, the leaders of the Alliance, were expelled from the International.
- ↑ Wilhelm Bracke, who believed that the working class can succeed only through an alliance with the peasantry, was actively engaged in agitation among the latter in the 1870s. At the German Reichstag elections of 10 January 1877 (see Note 237), he was nominated at the Brunswick 1st electoral district and was supported by a large number of rural voters. He lost the main elections but won the by-elections in the Glauchau-Meerane district on 22 February.